


Not quite Lichtenberg

by Webtrinsic



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: ? - Freeform, Aftermath of Possession, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Codependency, F/M, Fainting, Guilt, Healing Wavelengths, Hurt Marie Mjolnir, Insanity, Love Confessions, Madness, Pain, Protective Franken Stein, Souls, Stein has some feelings, he just doesn't understand them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:42:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29668170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Webtrinsic/pseuds/Webtrinsic
Summary: Marie doesn't save Stein without suffering some injuries. Ones she cannot heal whilst chasing his madness away. It doesn't take him too long to realize this, and the feelings that follow are foreign. But he'd always been prepared to learn.
Relationships: Marie Mjolnir/Franken Stein
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	Not quite Lichtenberg

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DollyPop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DollyPop/gifts).



> soul eater was the first anime i ever watched way back in like 2012, and I've rematched it like seven times, and now i finally got my sister to watch it. Franken is forever my favorite and the lack of merch hurts my heart. I love him and marie together tho, ugh but I've been meaning to write something for them forever but sadly i kinda lost myself during this and don't like how it turned out.

She is in pain, it'd be miraculous if she wasn’t, but Marie was in nothing short of agony and this wasn’t the time to deal with it.  Crona needed medical attention, Rachel had to be taken home, and Stein...Stein needed her madness healing wavelength most of all.

So the demon hammer sucked it up, used her cracked compact mirror to phone in lord death whilst seeing off Maka and Soul. Praying that Stein was correct, which Marie was sure he was, Genie Hunter _would_ be the key to eviscerating the kishin. Banishing it from this world once and for all along with the insanity it brought with it.

Her left ankle is turned, the expanse of her back surely as black as her dress with bruising, concussed if her slight lapse in memory about what was death's number when she was aware she knew the sequence of digits like the back of her hand.

She’d experienced whiplash no doubt, her neck aching. Stein really could hit hard, something she’d always known but had never experienced first hand until now.  Her ribs are surely cracked as well, her spine probably even bruised, but still, Marie is a mjolnir. A pillar of strength even with her casing cracked, handle brittle, she had a job to do.

Stein had said her obsessive tendencies would come in handy, and they pour into her now. Eager to be the supportive weapon partner she was born to be for the man she cared about far too deeply.

Her strength wanes as reinforcements arrive, a stretcher for Crona, Rachel’s mother and father, and a ride back to death city.  It’s a sweet picture, the three of them huddled in close, and Marie longs for something similar even though she’s almost sure now she’ll never actually get it. Not with how she feels about Stein and how _normal_ wasn't apart of his vocabulary unless tinged with disdain.

There’s not enough room for them all in the coach, it is as good an excuse as any for her to transform. Doing it so suddenly Stein, who still catches her, passes his Kelly-green eyes over her casing, obviously not expecting it.

She doesn’t let her form peak through, keeps her weapon shielded and opaque. Knowing her face at the moment is likely as expressive as a picasso, and that he’ll somehow manage to see the wounds marring her skin even in weapon form where they shouldn’t show unless directly impacted.

Likely if she took another hit in her tonfa form she’d start to bleed. Her instincts, impulsions, actions now are so skewed, varied, it’s almost a surprise he’s still able to hold her.

Then again it’s not, she’s relentlessly pumping at her wavelength even though by the time she’ll get to death city she’ll surely fall unconscious. Potentially even comatose. It was dangerous to black out in weapon form, often the body would return to its natural form but if the situation was dire, really dire, that and a plethora of different variables, specifically while utilizing a special wavelength: they stayed.

His soul brushes over her own, inquisitive and if she really looks at the tinges of electricity, she swears there is something close to concern. With a taxing amount of effort, the woman manages to send a hopefully soothing assurance back. 

She’s not sure if it goes over well, especially because his grip on her handle tightens. She responds by maintaining her wavelength. And she learns as soon as they arrive, the others being rushed away, that the man has some tact. 

His meister voice rises from the depths, something she’d rarely even heard when they were partnered as teens, “Transform,” she won’t, she can’t. Her healing wavelength runs like a train.

She continues to hide, sweat beading from her soul’s brow. She’s determined now, put too much forward to stop, can’t stop, her wavelength is overtaking her, her subconscious running the show.

“Marie transform!” The man’s voice was harried and she couldn’t keep her eye open any longer. She slips, falling slack, unconscious, her body still in her casing, wavelength blaring but unable to directly latch onto the scientist. It’s his grasp on her handle that keeps him stable, or as close to stable he could possibly be.

“Marie,” is the last thing she hears.

* * *

Lord Death, Spirit, and the Chairman of the Committee herself can feel something is wrong with the hammer in the madman’s arm the second he passes under the guillotines.  And if that hadn’t been what got their attention, Stein had. His hair tousled, his eyes wide, not tinged with madness but rather fear. He all but runs to the tattered recovering god.

“Help her,” he’s not asking, he’s demanding. Spirit approaches quickly, moving to touch his pseudo friends shoulder, help him settle. A wrong move because Stein only just manages to push down the instinct to swing Marie to deter the other man.

“Apologies Stein, but it must be you to wake her,” The death god explains, voice hoarse beneath his fake jeering tone. Stein withers at the apology, hand moving quicker than lightning to turn his screw.  The notches grate the air, pull and echo at the inside of his skull. The sound isn’t as welcoming as it usually is, not as a litany of the woman's name who he  _ feels  _ for runs through the creases of his brain.

“Stein-” Spirit begins, but he doesn’t listen. Not wanting to hear any of his words, not when time’s wasting. The madman has thanked his growth spurt time and time again, and he thanks it again now.  His legs take him across campus in seconds, when he gets into the nurses office, there’s a curtain covering the bustle of doctors and nurses tending to Crona. He could have taken Marie back home, their home, but no-not when he could still picture her mary janes falling from the roof, and her following.

He doesn’t dare let go of her handle, not even as he yanks the curtain around them shut. No one seemed to mind, too preoccupied with the demon sword, while Stein’s focus remained on Marie.  Resting her and his arm in the middle of the bed, Franken ignores the way his glasses slide forward on his face, ignores the other souls in the room as he falls into his soul perception.

Marie is there, a charred remnant of fire on a blown out wick. His soul charges, rivalling the very god he is working on, slamming into hers and filling it. Charging it until it begins to flicker and ignite again.

“Marie,” The madman pleas, reverently. His breath bounces off her casing, he hadn’t even realized he’d been panting. The steel fogs, his longing to see her grows, he still can’t see her and it’s not a good sign. Not at all.

_ “Franken?”  _ It’s a whisper in the dark, one he holds to, his soul thrumming downright happily at the sound. He’d prefer to hear it with his own ears and not throughout their wavelength. It isn’t often anyone calls him Franken, in fact he doesn’t really like when people call him that, but Marie-hell she could call him anything and he’d still feel as if he were her whole world.

He certainly doesn’t deserve to feel that- _this_ way. Doesn’t deserve her, nor does he deserve the sanctuary and sanity she provided him, but she’s told him time and time again. It was- _is_ her choice, and of all the things she could have, especially with her magnetic personality and glorious features, she chose him again and again.

He had to repay her in some way, he never truly would, but dear death he could try. Little by little her soul crackles, coming closer to his grasp. The moment it’s within reach, his soul snatches her from the depths, pulling her towards her transformation with fervor.

Opening his eyes, unsure of when they closed, Marie looked up at him tiredly. Her lips turned up into a fragile smile, one he returned with a gentleness he didn’t know he had.  As relieved as he is to have her before him, she is still hurt, and although he’d spent his life tearing things apart, he wanted nothing more than to help her back together.

“Where does it hurt?” again with the meister voice, this time it gets results.  The blonde woman sighs, blush blooming over cheeks. He doesn’t know what exactly that means, he’s pretty sure it's embarrassment, but he doesn’t understand why she would feel that way.

“Left ankle, my back,” she murmurs softly, avoiding eye contact. His hands are careful as he gets to work, slipping off her shoes with trembling hands and immediately wincing at her purple ankle.

Her skin is hotter than usual under his hands, the inflammation conducting more heat making his fingertips burn as he wraps the skin with gauze. Her breaths are stunted, and although she hadn’t said it outloud, he’s sure her ribs are cracked-he’ll have to wrap them too.

“I’m going to turn you on your side,” his hands are tentative as he maneuvers her, her dress's zipper descending under his fingertips. Not that she knows but her presumption had been correct, her skin was far from it’s normal alabaster. 

The guilt that’d confused him, that’d brought him to Medusa’s side made more sense as he continued to pull the fabric apart. 

“I’m sorry,” it slips through his lips in the same way his smoke usually does, and Marie doesn’t say anything in turn, honestly taken aback, never imagining those words could even breach his lips, let alone his conscious.

To be fair, he wouldn’t have believed her or have truly cared if she accepted or brushed the apology off. Instead, she says the only things that comes to mind.

“I love you,” 

He knows and it should be unfathomable, it had been. But she’d come all this way, she’d taken the blows he’d dealt and she’d stifled his madness. The madness he’d forgotten in the midst of her injuries.

She loves him and he _feels_ for her. _What_ he doesn’t know but it’s strong, and nothing has ever felt so right. Those feelings, fan out away from his soul, fluttering around her in a way that makes her heart skip a beat.

He may not understand, but she does. 

Marie does.

**Author's Note:**

> Snap: allisonw1122  
> Tumblr/twitter: webtrinsic1122  
> Insta:Webtrinsic


End file.
